The Third round of the 2010 FIM World Sidecar Championship was held at Rijeka in Croatia, Treasure Racing’s Adam Treasure & Darren Dewhurst took the 16 hour long trip from Ludinghausen in Germany to Rijeka in the B & R Tyre Service Truck with their Mick DeWith Suzuki GSXR-1000cc powered LCR Sidecar being towed behind in Albert Raesfeld’s trailer.
Adam, Darren and Albert talking strategy over dinner.
Photo by Linda Beumer
Arriving at the circuit on Thursday the weather was a relatively warm 30 Deg C. Adam & Darren were lucky enough to arrive on an open track day that allowed the boys to go out on the track and get an extra (unofficial) practice session done which would prove to be a very valuable 40 Euro spent. The track surface at Rijeka is very old, having been laid in 1978 without any resurfacing been done. There are a lot of cracks and bumps in the track that Robbie Maddison might even have trouble negotiating, but the surface provides for an insane amount of grip.
Friday provided a chance for 2 more free practice sessions, the 1st session being another “unofficial” session with the 2nd being the official start to the meeting for the World Championship Sidecars. Adam was bedding in some new brake pads for the meeting, a different compound to the pads he normally uses on the bike, so The teams progress through these sessions was smooth and steady.
By Saturday Morning’s 1st qualifying session Adam & Darren were starting to pick up there pace and were putting in lap times that had them well inside the top 10 on track. After the 2nd qualifying session Treasure Racing had managed to put itself into 4th place on the starting grid, this was Adam’s highest ever qualifying positon in World Championship racing.
Saturday afternoon had the 1st Sidecar race for the weekend, the 11 lap Sprint race, which saw Adam & Darren get swamped off the line, not making the most of their high grid position, placing 8th into the first turn, a race long battle with Janez Remsi/Jamie Biggs and Scott Lawrie/James Neave had Adam and Darren dicing for 4th place and while into 4th at times Treasure racing had a slight disadvantage when the new brake pads installed for the weekend still weren’t working as well as Adam had hoped for, with a lack of confidence in the bikes ability to stop at the end of the back straight into the tight double left corners Adam & Darren had to settle for 6th place, their best finish in a World Championship race to date.
Photo by Linda Beumer
Saturday night had the clouds open up with Thunder and Lightening so ferocious it sounded and at times looked like Rijeka was going to be turned into “Lake Rijeka”. Still not happy with the brake pads at the end of the Sprint Race Adam re-installed the old pads after the race, unfortunately Saturday nights rain continued into Sunday mornings warm up and with only a short session in the wet to try to bed the old brake pads in the boys were trying to fight a losing battle.
The 20 lap Gold race was declared a “Wet Race” from the very start with the track wet and just a heavy drizzle to keep it damp. As the teams fronted up to the start line there were all sorts of tyre combinations on the Sidecars from full slicks to combinations, Intermediates and full wets. Adam had chosen a full wet set up and from the start of the race their race pace was very good. The 2 leading teams of Tim Reeves/Gregory Cluze and Pekka Paivarinta/Adolf Hannii were both on Slicks and their previous experience on the track with it’s outstanding grip showed that they knew they would be ok with their tyre combinations. Meanwhile, Adam & Darren had settled into 5th place and were extremely happy that they had had their 1st wet racing experience at the previous meeting at the IDM/German Championship at the Nurburgring and the useful knowledge they gained at that meeting was being used here in Croatia and was working well for them.
After the first 3 or 4 laps were used to explore the wet setup of the bike and the levels of wet weather grip on the track which are amazing due to the very rough texture of the asphalt, Adam began to push a bit harder and the gap to Ben & Tom Birchell and Josef Moser/Manfred Wechselberger began to close. Over the course of many steady laps Adam & Darren caught Moser/Wechselberger, the Birchell Brothers had managed to increasd eheir pace and were comfortably into 3rd place so the battle with Moser/Wechselberger was for 4th place. Adam made a brilliant passing move into one of the right turn corners of the double chicane before the back straight but with no confidence in the brakes the boys were passed again into the hard braking double left at the end of the back straight. Two laps later Adam made the same passing move on Moser and again Moser passed back at the end of the back straight.
The 2 teams raced in close proximity until coming upto back markers saw Moser/Wlceselberger get by with Adam and Darren caught behind the back markers for almost a full lap. Once passed the back markers with 2 laps to go Treasure racing was passed without warning by the Scott Lawrie/James Neave combination at Adams least favourite part of the circuit, the hard braking double lefts at the end of the back straight. Another 6th place for the Gold race was a brilliant way to cap off the weekends racing.
The 2x 6th places at Rijeka saw Treasure Racing leap from 16th in the World Championship into 8th place overall.
Adam & Darren’s next race meeting will be on the weekend of the 2-4 of July at Salzburgring in Austria as part of the IDM/German Championship, the “Steve’s Place” website at www.steveenglish.com or the IDM website at www.idm.de can be viewed to keep up with the racing results as they happen.
Till next time!
Yours in Racing
Adam and Darren
Treasure Racing
F1 sidecar #38